Case Study: 5 Reasons Why the American College of Radiology Chooses EIZO

The CEOs of both the American College of Radiology (ACR) and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiology (RANZCR) recently joined forces in Adelaide, Australia to host a unique workshop for practicing radiologists from across the world.

On October 29, 2015 practicing radiologists enjoyed a hands-on learning environment in a workshop hosted by both Dr. Jeffrey Kanne and Dr. Douglas Katz. EIZO provided the monitors for radiologists to use individual workstations to simulate a real-life environment and the results were outstanding.

1. Decreased User Fatigue

William T. Thorwarth Jr. MD, FACR
CEO American College of Radiology (ACR)
Former Chairman and current Editorial Panel AMA Current Procedural Terminology
Advisory Board Institute of Clinical and Economic Review Former RSNA Board of Directors
Practicing interventional and diagnostic radiologist for nearly 30 years

According to Dr. William T. Thorwarth Jr. MD, FACR, CEO American College of Radiology (ACR), “As a practicing radiologist I knew and saw every day the importance of high resolution monitors in our diagnostic practice. It's really important that radiologists get the best images, but at the same time also can benefit from decreased user fatigue.”

“We've really enjoyed our relationship with EIZO, in supporting the education center in Weston, Virginia, and making sure our users are exposed to the high quality of those monitors,” said Dr. Thorwarth.

Dr. Kanne is the co-director for the American College of Radiology's HRCT course at the education center. Dr. Kanne teaches people how to interpret high-resolution CT scans of the lungs, ranging from acute diseases to chronic diseases. As a result Dr. Kanne is very familiar with the high workloads for radiologists and the value of a monitor that reduces eye fatigue, “I really enjoy the high-quality images, the brightness, the lack of eye strain. Because looking at CT scans all day
- our students are there until 10:00 at night sometimes - allows them to really focus on the material and not be fatigued.“

2. Matte Quality

Dr. Kanne talked about the EIZO monitors and what made them special, “I like the matte quality. I don't like the glossy things you can run into with other screens. You get the glare. There's no glare issue with it. It's just a very soothing to the eyes. Staring at a screen all day can be very fatiguing. But having a nice high-quality monitor with good brightness really reduces the eye strain.”

3. Wide Format Screen

The importance of a wide format screen was explained by Dr. Kanne, “Well, in chest imaging we usually use three or four monitors to put up all the different images. But by having a wide-format screen with PACS, we can easily display two different sets of images on the same screen, and you don't have the gap between the two. You also have the advantages of taking over the full real estate to enlarge images. I've enjoyed working with the products, I would recommend EIZO monitors to others”.

4. Single Screen Multi-Modality

Douglas S. Katz, M.D., F.A.C.R., F.A.S.E.R., F.S.A.R.
Director of Body Imaging and Vice Chair for Clinical Research and Education at Winthrop-University Hospital New York
Professor of Clinical Radiology at the State University of New York
Secretary of the American Society of Emergency Radiology
Editorial Board of both Radiology and the American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR)

Dr. Douglas Katz, co-director of the American College of Radiology's course in emergency radiology for the general radiologist, said, “with the emergency radiology course, we're dealing with almost all modalities. We're dealing with particularly computer tomography, which is our workhorse, some radiography and musculo-skeletal chest. We have ultrasound images. We even have a decent amount of MR. So the ability to show multiple types of modalities at the same time with equal image quality, is really ideal in this kind of a teaching setting.”

“I particularly like the monitors in terms of the single screen. In my own practice we have a similar set up, as opposed to the old set up where there's one monitor and another monitor that can go in different directions. So I think in terms of being focused and looking at the images, it's an ideal kind of a set up to have a single monitor be able to demonstrate two or more exams simultaneously. Again, it can be different modalities at the same time.”

Dr. Katz said, “There are long days. We spend many hours at the center. We're rotating around the room, and looking at different cases with different students. There's no glare, the image quality is excellent and it's pleasing. I think it's easy on the eyes, so to speak.

“I just want to thank EIZO for supporting the education center. We think it's a very important activity. For me, and I do a lot of different academic type of activities, it's essentially my favorite teaching activity above and beyond just the routine work that I do, teaching my residents. So thank the company for the support, and for particularly supporting this visit to Adelaide, Australia. It's been great,” said Dr. Katz.

5. The EIZO Partnership

Mr. Vinay K. Sandhir
Senior Director of the American College of Radiology's Education Center

Mr. Vinay Sandhir has a lot to say about EIZO: “When we wanted to build the ACR Education Center, we approached all the leading monitor manufacturers. We settled on EIZO. They were the finest partners that we could have envisioned. They would be able to provide 60 workstations in a state-of-the-art facility that allowed us to teach residents, fellows, and practicing radiologists in a way that emulated the clinical environment. Clinical-grade monitors were a prerequisite in building the ACR Education Center. We're thrilled to have EIZO in our facility.”

“EIZO was able to provide 25 monitors, to provide the first offering of the ACR Education Center outside of North America. Again, being able to provide the clinical simulation environment with state-of-the-art work stations, coupled with medical-grade monitors, allow us to take our teaching methodology all the way to Australia. We couldn't have done it without EIZO,” said Mr. Sandhir.

According to Mr. Sandhir, the reaction of the radiologists at the Adelaide workshop was palpable, “They're blown away by the quality of the monitors that EIZO provides, soothing to the eye and allow them to see the detail necessary, have really made an impact to the attendants of the conference. I would recommend EIZO monitors. Over 8000 attendees have attended ACR education courses using EIZO monitors, and we've had phenomenal response from our attendees.”

EIZO and RANZCR

Natalia Vukolova
Bachelor of Business Management, Master of Social Development
CEO Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists
Associate Fellow of the Australian College of Health Service Management
Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors

The CEO of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists (RANZCR), Ms. Natalia Vukolova detailed the importance of EIZO in making the Adelaide event such a success, “We're very excited this year to introduce a partnership with the American College of Radiologists. We needed a trusted partner to provide the monitors for the workshops that we're running together. EIZO came to mind, and have provided the monitors just as we needed, of the high quality that our radiologists and our members of the college expect at the workshop.”

“We're very grateful for the generosity of EIZO and for their partnership and support, for the important work we're doing in providing training opportunities for radiologists in Australia and New Zealand,” said Ms. Vukolova.